John McAteer

I am sad to have to tell you that our good friend and fellow poet, John McAteer, passed away of Alzheimer’s on March 28 in Portland, Oregon — precisely at cherry blossom time. He was 84. His wife, Peggy writes that “a little card I made was the last thing I was able to share with John … The photo was taken at the hanami party 3 years ago in Ohara. Though he was already suffering from the effects of developing Alzheimer’s, it was very important to him that we got to Japan in time for your hanami event … His relationship with the haiku group added great depth to his life in Japan and I thank you very much. I may work the text into a real haiku and use it for his grave marker.” ……… (click on the photo to enlarge)

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Kyoto sakura

The petals will surely fall

But never our love

……………. Peggy

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Endless the pathways

redolent of times gone by —

Ogura’s shadow

……………. John (from 100 Poets)

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…………………………………… Against the sea’s roar —

…………………………………….The frail old man stands

…………………………………….Sounding his shakuhachi

………………………………………………….. John (from Lost Heian)

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Sitting entranced …………………………………. How many climbers

in the upper room — ……………………………. have grasped this root for aid?

evening mountain shadows …………………. shining still like teak

……………………………………. John (both from Meltdown)

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John was born in Massachusetts and first came to Japan in 1972. Over the years, he worked as professor/lecturer for several universities here in Kansai, including Nara Nat. Univ. of Educ.. He was a gifted performer of Noh, a playwright (most memorably his Robert Frost Noh piece, The Death of a Hired Man), a father, husband and true friend to many. His smile was a real delight. He often used to recite Yeats in his rich baritone voice as he strolled along with us on our haiku hikes. His last performance was in the Portland State Univ. production of the kabuki, 47 Loyal Samurai, in 2016. Peggy tells me that he passed away on the very same day that his own teacher of Noh, Udaka Mitsuhige, did! John will be sorely missed by all. Our prayers are with his family now. Please remember him, as we do Saigyo, under the cherry moon.

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You can see more of John in reports of some events, such as these:

https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/mt-mikami-haike/

https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/hailstone-autumn-haike-2013-uminobe-no-michi-湖の辺の道/

https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/urban-ginko-2-a-stroll-to-busons-birthplace/

Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2020 Results

Amazing! The judges have finished their pow-wow early this year (completed on a long conference call between Tokyo, Kyoto and Tipperary), and we have already notified the awardees, so here now are the results of the 2020 Genjuan Contest:

グランプリ作品 Grand Prix
Snow in Advent …. David Cobb (UK)

庵賞 An (Cottage) Prizes
Whispers …. David McCullough (Japan/UK)
Key West Cat …. Joan Prefontaine (USA)

入選作 Honourable Mentions
Jamshedpur …. Kanchan Chatterjee (India)
Visiting John …. Paul Bregazzi (Ireland)
Fifteen Minute Limit …. Naomi Beth Wakan (Canada)
The Penultimate Mile …. Geethanjali Rajan (India)
Nagaranishi …. Sydney Solis (Japan/USA)
The Easter of the Blajin …. Cezar-Florin Ciobica (Romania)
Sunday Stopping Train to Salzburg …. Dick Pettit (Denmark)

審査委員 Judges – Akiko Takazawa, Stephen Henry Gill, Sean O’Connor

I don’t think Grand Prix-winning author David Cobb will mind me telling you that he has just turned 94 years old. Apparently he wrote the haibun when he was still a mere 93! I just spoke with him on the phone to Britain and he was his usual cheerful self. A worthy winner if ever there was one. You can read Snow in Advent and the two An Prize-winning pieces here.

We received more than 100 entries in all, but 7 had to be disqualified as haiku or haiku sequences without titles. This is a haibun contest and we demand prose! Amongst the 18 countries they came from, it was pleasing to find half a dozen good works from South East Asia this year, although none received an award. It was also a good year for Hailstone Haiku Circle, whose website this is, with two of its members gaining awards (DMcC and SS). Well done, Kansai friends! We also find two pieces from India amongst the Hon. Mentions.

The judges and the contest officer wish to thank all who sent us their pieces. Our warm congratulations go to all ten of the awardees.

Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2020

We are pleased to announce that the Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2020 will be open for submissions from Oct. 1 till Jan. 31 (arriving a couple of days late is usually OK). This year we have a new Officer, Yaeno Azuchi, and therefore a new address: 53-56 Izumigawa-cho, Shimogamo, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-0807, Japan. Much gratitude goes to her predecessor in Hyogo, Eiko Mori, for many years of bright, efficient service.

We also have two new Judges, both haiku poets: Akiko Takazawa & Sean O’Connor. Akiko, a disciple of Murio Suzuki (1919-2004), leads the Karinka 花林花 group and lectures on haiku at NHK Gakuen in Tokyo. She is also a fine translator of haiku, both Japanese into English and vice versa. Sean is the author of Even the Mountains – Five Years in a Japanese Village, amongst other memorable books, and has a good grasp of the Japanese view of haiku and haibun. He is also the founding editor of The Haibun Journal, published in his native Ireland.

We must thank the two judges stepping down, Toru Kiuchi and Hisashi Miyazaki, for all their hard work. The latter particularly has made a huge contribution to haibun exchange between Japan and the English-speaking world. His humorous and shrewd judges’ comments will be sorely missed. The most recent compilation of awarded works in the Contest (2015-17), Cottage of Visions, he recently translated into Japanese as イヌピアット語のレッスン Inupiat Lessons, and we are currently selling this book. It makes an excellent Christmas/New Year present for Japanese friends. If interested, leave a comment below (or at the earlier posting), and we can tell you how to order. The book is an attempt to showcase to the Japanese haiku world what ‘haibun’ has become abroad – something of which we can all be proud.

Complete Guidelines for entering the 2020 Contest, which is free, are given here. We look forward to receiving your haibun entries this autumn and early winter.

「イヌピアット語のレッスン」

It is unusual to use Japanese language for the title of a posting, but this is a Japanese language book! For those of you who cannot read Japanese, the title says “Inupiat Lessons”, taken, with permission, from Doris Lynch’s Genjuan Haibun Contest 2015 Cottage Prize-winning haibun reproduced in Jap. trans. on page 22 of the book. It is about her experiences while living in Kivalina, in northwest Alaska. The original English haibun was reproduced on p.10 of the recent Genjuan anthology, “From the Cottage of Visions“. The new 176-page book is basically a Japanese translation of the earlier English language book, pub. by Hailstone. It has been translated and edited by Hisashi Miyazaki with assistance from Stephen Henry Gill and Nenten Tsubo’uchi. It includes new greetings/foreword by the Contest’s two founders, Nobuyuki Yuasa & SHG (Tito), a new afterword by NT, and an augmented overview of haibun history can be found within HM’s new appended Commentary. This is an attempt to awaken the interest of Japanese readers in haibun, which, as a literary form, although of Japanese origin, has in recent decades mainly been developed overseas. It is fascinating to see what foreigners have made of a Japanese genre. The obi (yellow paper band wrapped around the book) says enticingly, “Haibun? What is that?” (NT).

The book was published in April 2019 by Zonomori Press 像の森書房 in Osaka. It is available from Amazon Japan here or from Hailstone here . It costs ￥1,500 if you buy it at a Hailstone seminar or event or in a bookshop in Kansai. It might be of interest to some Japanese readers to compare the original English found in “From the Cottage of Visions” with the Japanese text in “Inupiat Lessons”. Please support this project, financed largely by donation, including one from Hailstone. Get your copy while they last!

Genjuan International Haibun Contest 2019 Results

The results of the 8th Genjuan Haibun Contest are as follows.  It was a good year for Canadian writers! We received 94 entries from a record 19 countries this year. Our gratitude goes to all entrants and congratulations to the awardees. We also wish to thank our new judge, Toru Kiuchi, for his hard work and insightful remarks. The five prize-winning 2019 entries have now been posted to the Icebox on a separate page (find orange link at top right). Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as the judges did.

Grand Prix

Memories of a Coal-Miner’s Grandson   Bryan D. Cook  (Canada)

An (Cottage) Prizes

Wigan Flash    Judy Kendall  (UK)
Come and See   Sean O’Connor  (Ireland)
White Out   Marcyn Del Clements  (USA)
Seeing in Darkness ..Branko Manojlovic . (Serbia/Japan)

Honourable  Mentions

House of the Sun   Jeff Doleman  (USA)
An Aura   Diana Webb  (UK)
Food for Thought    Ignatius Fay  (Canada)
The Beggar near the Palma Cathedral   Joan Prefontaine  (USA)
Cherries   Terry Ann Carter  (Canada)

Poll: Chief Characteristics of English Haiku (Mar. 2019 update)

If you scroll down the right-hand margin of the Icebox top page, you will find a poll, in which everyone is still most welcome to participate – just once! The software has the ability to prevent second-timers or those who would try to choose more than 3 options. People from all over the world have taken part. If you click on the words ‘See Results’ at the bottom of the poll area, you will see the latest number of votes for each characteristic. Clicking there in Mar. 2019, I notice that we have now had 200 people return their idea of what might be the ‘Three Chief Characteristics of English Haiku’, so perhaps it’s time again to look at some of the poll’s emerging conclusions.

The two categories of Juxtaposition and Cut/break now total 89 votes together, which means that almost one in two people think that aspect is crucial. In Japanese haiku these are known, respectively, as 取合せ toriawase and 切れ kire and may be viewed as related features. It is true, however, that there are ‘un-cut’ haiku in both the Japanese and the English haiku-writing worlds. No, break is not an absolute requisite.

In second place, I notice that Originality and Poetic voice have thus far together polled 72 votes … and Resonance and Open-endedness garnered 71 between them. For now, allow me to put aside the first, Originality, which is a requisite of all poetry, not just haiku. I shall keep that quality of ‘expansiveness’ (Resonance) in mind, though, as we continue through the top of the league.

More or less equal in third place, we have Moment and Present tense (aggregating 64), and Brevity and Omission (aggregating 57). Ordinary present-simple and present-continuous tenses clearly rule the roost in English haiku-writing, but a ‘Present moment’ quality is not something that is considered in Japan, where verbs may come in many different tenses and might even sometimes be a touch classical in tone. Brief expression is obviously a requisite of haiku, though how brief exactly is open to debate.

As most will already know, the three chief characteristics of the classical Japanese haiku are: 1. 5-7-5 form, 2. Seasonal reference, and 3. Break (often using a cutting word). In spite of plenty of experimentation over the last 100 years, 5-7-5 kana letters as a single line is still today the normal style in Japan.  Looking again at our poll results, I find that 5-7-5 and 3-lines together polled only 31 votes from 200 people. Seasonal reference gathered in just 38 votes; the same number, interestingly, as Real experience. I propose now to add Real experience (38 votes) to Present moment (64): and we get 102, which brings it to the top of the charts!

It is thus tempting to conclude that the three most important characteristics of English haiku, at least from this poll as it stands today, are:
……… 1. The present moment (102 votes)
……… 2. Break (with or without punctuation) (89)
……… 3. An expansive quality felt at poem’s end (71).
Concision is in fourth place (57).

The English haiku poet’s craft, when thus analyzed, may appear to be quintessentially about the vividness of the Present situation and the utilization of Break as a technique through which to create Resonance for the reader learning of it. Being a Brief expression is evidently also highly valued, as it should be, although free-form haiku is clearly the current norm. For me personally, I was a little sad that Sound/cadence has thus far only polled 21 votes – one in ten: not insignificant, but definitely a minor characteristic for most. This is no doubt partly because of the almost puritanical minimalism that has reigned supreme since around 2005 in most of the leading haiku mags and sites, according musicality little importance. Icebox is in this respect rather different. Seasonality is probably in fifth place (38, and there’s nothing to couple it with): again, slightly disheartening for one who was born in Britain and now lives in Kyoto – a city with a deeply seasonal flow. The English-writing world is such a big place!

Your comments on this interim overview are welcome. Just click on the word ‘comments’ below to open up the reply box. Feel free to tweet it or to share it on Facebook. Next report? Perhaps after another 200 have responded!

Ellis

Dear friend and Hailstone member, Ellis Avery, passed away on Feb. 15 of this year. She had been fighting cancer for quite a while, and several of her friends here in Kansai knew of this. A few of us were fortunate to have had dinner with her on what we now know to have been her last trip to her beloved Kyoto, in December 2018. Some of us were given her latest Haiku Datebook containing her daily English haiku for the last full year of her regretfully shortened life. The first poem in it goes:

………. Bright sun, blue Charles,
………. her hand in mine. So thankful
………. for this day, so keen for more.

The Charles is the name of the river running through Boston, MA, where she lived with her wife, Sharon Marcus, and where my own grandmother lived in later life and died (but at more than double Ellis’ age of 46). This haiku especially brings tears to my eyes.

Some of you may remember Ellis as a contributor to Hibikiai Forum, as a judge of the Genjuan International Haibun Contest or perhaps, more likely, as a prize-winning novelist. Amongst her works outside of haiku were The Smoke Week (2003), The Teahouse Fire (2006), and The Last Nude (2012). She was not only a brilliant writer and fine poet, but also a most compassionate person: in fact she had been training to become a nurse. Our thoughts go out to Sharon. Her artistic legacy will survive!

Ellis’ latest haiku collection can be purchased here: http://www.harvard.com/book/haiku_datebook_2019/

This is the penultimate haiku in the book:

………. The leaves are dead,
………. but not the trees. They rest
………. with arms aloft. They wait.

RIP